After upgrading to Windows 7, it was time to build a new All-In-One environment where we can work with Operations Manager 2007 R2. We previously blogged on this, but the previous posting was written for an older host operating system and older guest operating system. There were some interesting gotcha’s that are included as we step through this process; but overall, the solution is working well. Here’s what we had to do:

After installing Virtual PC, we created a new virtual machine called “All-In-One” with a dynamically expanding drive, and mounted the Windows 2008 x86 media. From web research it appears that Windows Virtual PC for Windows 7 will not run 64 bit operating systems; this removed Windows Server 2008 R2 from consideration and Windows Server 2008 x64 as well; Windows 2008 x86 was the most current version available for use.

This system is running Windows 7 x86, so it has a total of 3.6 GB of memory available (yeah this could have used x64 but we wanted to keep it on x86). We assigned a total of 1.3 GB of memory for the All-In-One virtual machine.

After booting up and installing the operating system, we installed the Virtual PC integration components, renamed the computer, and activated the server. After activation Microsoft Update was utilized to bring the system to current patch levels.

Next, we hard-coded the IP address on the server (and the DNS server as itself), and then executed DCPromo to create the new domain for this environment. The domain installation process includes installing DNS, and after a reboot the domain controller functionality was available.

Installing all the Operations Manager R2 components followed. This includes the Operations Database, Management Server, Operations Console, PowerShell, and Web Console components. After the installations completed, we rebooted the system then installed the Reporting and Data Warehouse components.

In the Alerts view of the Operations Console, we customized the view to add the Last Modified and repeat count fields – this makes it easier to locate alerts that occurred once versus those that are recurring.

Alert tuning was next. Here are the alerts we ran into and how they were addressed:

Script or Executable Failed to run – GetSQL2008DBSpace.js, GetSQL2008LongRunningJobs.vbs, GetOpsMgrDBPercentFreeSpace.vbs – This seems to happen occasionally particularly with hardware under bottlenecks such as an all-in-one environment. These can be closed if they are not recurring. Various articles on this are available at: www.systemcentercentral.com.

13. We rebooted the All-In-One server and identified new alerts as follows:

Script or Executable Failed to run – Occurred on reboot of the server, for GetSQL2008DBConfig.vbs. This is likely due to the order of startup with everything on the same server. Closed these after they did not recur for several hours.

The Domain Controller has been stopped & The Domain Controller has been started – Created an override to disable these informational alerts. Currently investigating the option to replace this functionality with a domain controller reboot monitor but not complete at this point in time.

14. In larger environments than an All-In-One, you will also receive alerts about the Proxy setting required for management packs such as the Active Directory MP, Exchange MP, DNS MP; but this does not apply in an All-In-One configuration.

15. As a final step, we configured the system to be able to edit company knowledge as discussed here.

4 Responses to OpsMgr By Example: Building and Tuning in an All-In-One environment for Operations Manager in Windows 7

Thank you for this set of installation notes, especially the alerts and the lessons learned. I noticed that you\’d used SQL Server 2008. The Ops-Mgr blog post you referenced reported installing over SQL 2005. Did you have any difficulties with SQL 2008? I\’ve been attempting to replicate your installation, but SCOM doesn\’t recognize a SQL 2008 installation–the prerequisite checker says there is no SQL server.

Glad you found it of help!To install using SQL 2008 for the database components you must be using OpsMgr 2007 R2. Are you using R2 or SP1?Chapter 4 of our upcoming ebook – System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Unleashed – includes a thorough discussion of SQL Server 2008 with OpsMgr 2007 R2.

Thank you for the response.I\’m using Server 2008 R2, SQL 2008 SP1 (64-bit) and SCOM 2007 R2. I had mistakenly attempted to apply the 32-bit SP1 patch for SQL. Talk about embarrassing. SCOM is passing the prerequisites now.Please let me know when SCOM Unleashed is released. I\’m sure I and my colleagues will be interested.